Issue 55 - And over in the Blue corner...

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And over in the Blue corner...

Piers Morgan is one of Britain's leading media personalities and he's promoting whisky. Dominic Roskrow met him

On the day I am to meet Piers Morgan, a row has erupted in the press between pop impressario Louie Walsh and singer Ronan Keating.

Keating has apparently criticised Walsh in an interview. And Walsh's response?

To withdraw all co-operation with the journalist who had the audacity to report Keating's outburst.

What makes this story remarkable is not just the fact that Walsh has shot the messenger. It is the fact that the offending quotes first appeared not in a British tabloid daily newspaper, but in the journalists' trade magazine UK Press Gazette.

Until a year ago few had heard of this worthy but pretty dull publication, and even fewer read it. And then Piers Morgan, who became Britain's youngest national newspaper editor for 50 years when Rupert Murdoch appointed him as head of the News of the World in the 90s and who has rarely been out of the media spotlight since, bought it.

Cue fireworks.

“It's pretty simple really,” he says over a glass of Johnnie Walker Blue Label, “ the job of any publication is to educate and entertain and I think that applies to any publication. I bring the same values to this title as I did to the News of the World or the Daily Mirror.

“My view was that the trade magazine for journalists should be a shining example of good journalism.

“There's absolutely no point in publishing anything if nobody bothers to read it.”

We're meeting for two reasons. Firstly because throughout his irrepressible and irreverent book The Insider: The...